What is Environment? 28 Extracts from talks
given between 1933-09-12 and 1980 by J Krishnamurti

1933-09-12 4th Public Talk, Frognerseteren, Norway

From these prejudices
there arises conflict, transient joys and suffering. But we are
unconscious of this, unconscious that we are slaves to certain forms
of tradition, to social and political environment, to false values.

1933-12-29 1st Public Talk, Adyar, Madras, India

To me, then, true criticism consists in trying to find out the
intrinsic worth of the thing itself, and not in attributing a quality
to that thing. You attribute a quality to an environment, to an
experience, only when you want to derive something from it, when you
want to gain or to have power or happiness. Now this destroys true
criticism. Your desire is perverted through attributing values, and
therefore you cannot see clearly. Instead of trying to see the
flower in its original and entire beauty, you look at it through
coloured glasses, and therefore you can never see it as it is.

1933-12-30 2nd Public Talk, Adyar, Madras, India

Religion, politics, society are exploiting you,
and you are being conditioned by them; you are being forced in a
particular direction. You are not human beings; you are mere cogs in
a machine. You suffer patiently, submitting to the cruelties of
environment, when you, individually, have the possibilities of
changing them.

1934-01-01 4th Public Talk, Adyar, Madras, India

There is no joy in your work, in your environment; you are afraid,
you are envious of the possessions of others. From that there
arises struggle, and from that struggle comes discontent. Then, to
overcome that discontent, to find satisfaction, you turn to the
opposite.

1934-01-02 5th Public Talk, Adyar, Madras, India

Now there is the memory which is associated with the pleasure of
yesterday. That is, you have enjoyed a beautiful scene; you have
admired the sunset or the moonlight on the waters. Then later, say
when you are in your office, your mind returns to that scene. Why?
Because when you are in an unpleasant and ugly environment, when your
mind and heart are caught up in what is not pleasant, your mind tends
automatically to return to the pleasant experience of yesterday.
This is one type of memory. Instead of changing conditions around
you, instead of altering the environment about you, you retrace the
steps of a pleasant experience and dwell on that memory, supporting
and tolerating the unpleasant because you feel that you cannot alter
it. Therefore the past lingers in the present. Have I made that
clear?

1934-03-28 1st Public Talk Town Hall, Auckland, New Zealand

Look and you will see that most human beings
are slaves, merely cogs in this machine. They are not really human
beings, but merely react to a set environment and therefore there is
no true individual action, individual thought; and to find out that
intimate relationship between all our actions, religious, political
or social, you as an individual must think, not as a group, not as a
collective body; and that is one of the most difficult things to do,
for individuals to step out of the social structure, or the
religious, and examine it critically, to find out what is false and
what true in that structure.

Now you are driven whether you like it or not, whether you think
it is sane or not; you are driven by conditions, environment, which
you have created, because you are still possessive, and now perhaps
another system will come along and drive you to the opposite - to be
non-possessive. Surely it is not morality; it is just sheepishness
to be driven by environment to be possessive or non-possessive.
Whereas, to me, true morality consists in understanding fully the
absurdity of possessiveness and voluntarily fighting it; not being
driven either way.

1934-03-30 1st Talk in Vasanta School Gardens, Auckland, New
Zealand

But if you want to alter it, and if you think that, as human beings,
we ought to have a different state, different condition, different
environment, not only for the select few, but for the whole of
humanity, then let us consider the problem together; not that I want
to dogmatize or to push you in one direction or another, influencing
you to act in a particular fashion, but rather through considering
together we shall come to a natural conclusion from which we must
necessarily and naturally act.

Please, I hope you will think with me with regard to this,
otherwise you will not quite understand it. So, with the burden of
the past, the burden of innumerable memories, we confront, we meet
every experience - a fresh experience, a fresh thought, a fresh
environment, a fresh day; with the background of the past we meet the
present.

1934-03-31-A 2nd Talk in Vasanta School Gardens, Auckland,
New Zealand

Again, to repeat the same thing put differently, we have external ideals
imposed on us through education, through politics, through social
influence, environment. Then we feel they are confining, limiting,
controlling, dominating, usurping our individual thought, so we develop
our own ideals - we think we develop our own ideals, beliefs, to which we
try to conform.

So to put it differently, mind and heart are the result of environment,
and then your environment controls the way you think and the way you
feel.

There must be something more, something which is more lasting.'` I said to
discover that, let us begin from things we know, and from that start - not
from a mysterious thing which we do not know, about which we can but
romance. So mind and heart, thought and feeling, are the result of
environment, and so long as you are a slave to that environment, there
cannot be understanding; you cannot then master environment, and to
master environment is to understand it.

That is, environment is after all, the social system and that system
which we call religion, made up of many doctrines, beliefs, dogmas,
innumerable prejudices, and the mind is a slave to this environment.
Take for instance, if you depend on mind for your livelihood, as most
people do, as everyone must, you are controlled to a great extent by the
beliefs that you hold.

Suppose that you are a Roman Catholic, and you want to find a job in a
Protestant place, or if Protestant, you want to find a job in a Roman
Catholic institution or office; if they discover your beliefs, it might
not be so easy to find a job, so you put away your beliefs or accept what
the other says momentarily, because you desire to earn money, because you
must have money. Through external environment, mentally, you are under
control, so your beliefs are merely the result of environment,
conditioned by the environment; and as long as you do not break down the
false environment of society and religion, your beliefs and ideals are
worthless, because they are but the result of
environment born of fear.

So to understand that which is lasting, eternal, there must be conflict
between the individual and the environment, and only in that conflict
can you pierce through the walls of limitation. We accept thoughtlessly
or unconsciously so many conditions imposed by society or by religion,
accept them as being true. Traditionally, our mind is driven into a
mould, and we unconsciously accept these things, and therefore we are
slaves to these things; and it is only by continually questioning, by
constant awareness, that we can free the mind from the environment, and
therefore be master of the environment.

After all, virtue is merely the result of a false environment, isn't
it? To resist the environment, you must have great character nowadays.

If the environment is changed, if the social conditions are changed,
then to be possessive or non-possessive is the same thing, then you call
possessiveness neither virtue nor an evil thing. Whereas now, as society
is constituted, to break away from these false standards is considered
either a virtue or a sin. But if we begin to alter the environment in
which the mind and heart are held, then this whole idea of virtue and sin
have a different meaning altogether; because, to me, virtue is not to be
sought after, to be gained, to be possessed, or sin to be abhorred or run
away from - whatever is meant by sin.

So if you merely accept either, and live in either, surely you are not
being creatively individual. You are merely like so many sheep, either
capitalistic sheep or communistic sheep, driven by environment,
condition, forced to accept. Surely such a thing is not moral; such a
thing is not rich or spiritual, true, And I say the true human state can
only come about when you, as individuals, voluntarily do these things,
because you see the necessity, the immense profundity in this - not merely
superficial excitation.

1934-03-31-B Talk to Theosophists in New Zealand

You are Christians; find out what is true and false in Christianity - and
you will then find out what is true. Find out what is true and false in
your environment with all its oppressions and cruelties, and then you
will find out what is true. Why do you want philosophies?

1934-04-01 2nd Talk in Town Hall, Auckland, New Zealand

Now, to me, to discover the cause of suffering, there must be that
acute state of mind and heart which is seeking, which is trying to
discover. In that state, you will see that the mind and heart have
become the slave of environment. Mind, with the vast majority of
people, is nothing but environment. Mind and heart are environment,
depending on their condition; and as long as the mind is a slave to
environment, there must be suffering, there must be continual
conflict of the individual against society; and the individual will
be free of environment only when he, by questioning the environment,
conquers the limitation placed on him by environment. That is, it
is only when you understand the true significance of each
environment, the true worth of the environment which has been placed
about you by society, by religions, that you pierce through the
limitation imposed, and thereby there is born true intelligence.
When you understand a thing you are no longer in conflict, you are
no longer bound by that which has been imposed on you by authority,
by tradition, by deep-rooted prejudices. So intelligence is
necessary to be supremely happy and to awaken that intelligence,
mind must be free of environment. The innumerable encrustations
created by religions and society, throughout the ages, have become
our environment. You can be free of environment, which individuals
have created, only when you understand its standards, its values,
its prejudices, its authorities. And you then begin to find out
what is the fundamental cause of suffering, which is the lack of
true intelligence, and that intelligence is not to be discovered by
some miraculous process, but by being continually aware, therefore
continually questioning, trying to discover the false and the true
in the environment placed about us.

Whether you call yourselves believers or disbelievers, by your conduct you
are not showing it; so whether you believe in God or not is of very little
importance. It is merely a superficial idea imposed by conditions and
environment, through fear, through authority, through imitation.

Now, I say this friction is a false thing, that it cannot exist in a
humanity where there is well-organized planning for the needs of human
beings, where there is true affection. So let us find out if the "I" is
the false creation of a false environment, a false society, or if the
"I" is something permanent, eternal. To me, this limited consciousness is
not eternal. It is the result of false environment and beliefs. If you
were doing what you really wanted to do in life, not being forced to do
some particular job which you loathe, if you were following your true
vocation, fulfilling yourself in your true vocation, then work would no
longer be friction.

But your work is not your vocation. Environment and social conditions
are forcing you to do a certain piece of work whether you like it or not,
so you have already created a friction. Then certain moral standards,
certain authorities have established various ideals as true, as false, as
being virtuous, and so on, and you accept these.

But your work is not your vocation. Environment and social conditions
are forcing you to do a certain piece of work whether you like it or not,
so you have already created a friction. Then certain moral standards,
certain authorities have established various ideals as true, as false, as
being virtuous, and so on, and you accept these.

So gradually your whole mind is warped and perverted and in conflict
till you have become conscious of that "I" and nothing else.
Therefore, you start with a wrong cause, produced by a wrong
environment, and you have a wrong answer. That memory has many
layers, and constitutes that consciousness which we call the "I".
And I say that this "I" is the false result of a false environment,
and hence its problems, its solutions, must be entirely false,
illusory. Whereas, if you, as individuals, begin to awaken to the
limitations of environment imposed on you by society, by religions,
by economic conditions, and begin to question, and thereby create
conflict, then you will dissipate that little consciousness which
you call the "I; then you will know what is that fulfillment, that
creative living in the present.

There is still in that consciousness death; there is still in that
consciousness a limitation; there is still in that consciousness an
emptiness, a continual gnawing of sorrow. Whereas, if you free the mind
from that consciousness of the "I" by discovering the right values of
environment, which no one can tell you, then you will know for
yourselves that fulfillment which is truth, which is God, or any name you
like to give it. But through the developing of that limited
self-consciousness, which is the false result of a false cause, you will
not find out what truth is, or what God is, what happiness is, what
perfection is; for in that self-consciousness there must be continual
conflict, continual striving, continual misery.

You are constantly self-conscious, and that is a fact, but as I
showed you, it has no reality. It is merely the habit of centuries
of false environment which has made a fact of something which is not
real. And though that fact may exist, and does exist, so long as
that continues there cannot be fulfillment. There is still in that
consciousness death; there is still in that consciousness a
limitation; there is still in that consciousness an emptiness, a
continual gnawing of sorrow. Whereas, if you free the mind from
that consciousness of the "I" by discovering the right values of
environment, which no one can tell you, then you will know for
yourselves that fulfillment which is truth, which is God, or any
name you like to give it. But through the developing of that
limited self-consciousness, which is the false result of a false
cause, you will not find out what truth is, or what God is, what
happiness is, what perfection is; for in that self-consciousness
there must be continual conflict, continual striving, continual
misery.

Then no one need tell you what the cause is, because you are functioning
intelligently, because you are beginning to question, not to accept. Then
you are becoming real individuals, not machines driven by environment
and fear. Then there will be more thoughtfulness, more affection, more
humanity in the world, not these awful divisions.

Now what is an individual? Not a human being who is driven to action by
environment, by circumstances. I say true individuality consists in
freeing the mind from the environment of the false, and therefore
becoming truly individual, and so there must be co-operation.

1934-04-02 3rd Talk in Vasanta School Gardens, Auckland,
New Zealand

Therefore, we say, "To find, to think about something which I like, I must
meditate." So you are giving a false answer to a false cause. That is,
environment - economic, social, religious - prevents you from doing,
fulfilling what you want to do; and as it prevents you, you have to find
moments, an hour or two, in which to live. So, disciplining the mind,
forcing it to a particular pattern then, is necessary, and hence the whole
idea of discipline. Whereas, if you really understood the limitation of
environment, and broke through it with action, then this process of
disciplining the mind to act in a certain manner would become wholly
unnecessary.

If you condition that free flowing movement of thought, of mind and heart,
then you must have conflict, and that conflict then must have a remedy,
and then the process begins: the searching for remedies, substitutes, and
never trying to find out the cause of this conflict. So through the
process of full awareness, you liberate the mind and heart from the
hindrances which have been set about them through environment; and as
long as environment is conditioning the mind, as long as the mind has
not discovered the true significance of the environment, there must be
conflict, and hence the false answer which is self-discipline.
As long as that ego consciousness remains, there must be fear; and that is
the fundamental cause of fear. And I tried to explain last night also,
how this limited consciousness which we call the "I" is brought about, how
it is created through false environment, and the fighting that is
brought about by that environment. That is, as the system now exists,
you have to fight for yourself to live at all, so that creates fear; and
then we try to find remedies to get rid of this fear.

We are just like animals really, though we may call ourselves civilized,
each one fighting for himself and his family; and that is one of the
fundamental causes of fear. If you really understand environment and
the battling against it, then you do not care, and fear loses its grip.

To be really free of that fear, which is to be free of that emptiness,
that shallowness, is not to cover it up by remedies; but rather to
recognize that shallowness, become aware of it, which gives you then the
alertness of mind to find out the values and the significance of each
experience, of each standard, of each environment. Through that you
will discover true intelligence; and intelligence is deep, profound,
limitless, and therefore shallowness disappears.
Because instinct has been so perverted, so bound by tradition, by
authority, by environment, that you can no longer trust it. That is,
the instinct of possessiveness is a false thing, an unnatural thing.

But the essential thing is that there is this continual movement of mind
and heart. If all action is really the expression of that movement, then
action becomes the new society, the new environment and therefore
society is not being approximated to some ideal, but in that action,
society is also moving, never static, never still, and morality is then a
voluntary perception, not forced through fear, or imposed externally by
society or by religion.

1934-04-06 Talk to Business Men in Auckland, New Zealand

So why call yourselves by different names and separate yourselves?
Whereas, if we really altered the environment to which we have become
such slaves, then we should be really Gods in ourselves, not follow
anybody. Personally, I do not belong to any sect, large or small.

I will put it this way. An ordinary individual now, as he is, is nothing
else but the focal point of the environment, of society, of religion, of
moral edicts and economic conditions - as the ordinary individual, he is
that.

Because what we call individuals are
nothing else but the result of false environment. This focal point of
the present state of individuality is really false, isn't it?

I call that a true moral act when we perceive a thing completely and act,
and not when forced by circumstances, or there is brought
about a brotherhood forced by the sheer brutal necessity of life. That
is, when business people, the capitalist, the financiers, begin to see
that this distinction does not pay, that they cannot make more money, they
cannot be in the same position, then they will bring about environment
forcing the individual to become brotherly; as now you are forced by
environment to be unbrotherly, to exploit, so you will also be forced to
co-operate. Surely that is not brotherhood: that is merely an action
brought about by convenience, without human intelligence and
understanding.

1934-06-16 1st Public Talk the Oak Grove, Ojai, California

Now, each one tries to immortalize the product of environment; that
thing which is the result of the environment we try to make eternal.
That is, the various fears, hopes, longings, prejudices, likes, personal
views which we glorify as our temperament - these are, after all, the
result, the product of environment; and the bundle of these memories,
which is the result of environment, the product of the reactions to
environment, this bundle becomes that consciousness which we call the "I".

The whole struggle is between the result of environment
with which mind identifies itself and becomes the "I", between that, and
environment. After all, the "I", the consciousness with which the mind
identifies itself is the result of environment. The struggle takes
place between that "I" and the constantly changing environment.

In other words, falsehood tries to become the real, the eternal. When you
understand the significance of the environment, there is no reaction and
therefore there is no conflict between the reaction, that is, between what
we call the "I" and the creator of the reaction which is the
environment. So this seeking for immortality, this craving to be
certain, to be lasting, is called the process of evolution,
the process of acquiring truth or God or the understanding of life.

You follow him with thought, or without thought; with thought when you
think that you are following him with intelligence because he is going to
lead you to immortality, to the realization of that ecstasy. That is, you
want another to immortalize for you that reaction which is the outcome of
environment, which is in itself inherently false. Out of
the desire to immortalize that which is false you create religions,
sociological systems and divisions, political methods, economic panaceas,
and moral standards.

So this continual search in which each one of us is caught up, the search
for happiness, for truth, for reality, for health - this continual desire
is cultivated by each one of us in order that we may be secure, permanent.
And out of that search for permanency, there must be conflict, conflict
between the result of environment, that is the "I", and the
environment itself.

When you talk about "I", "mine", my house, my enjoyment, my wife, my
child, my love, my temperament, what is that? It is nothing but the
result of environment, and there is a conflict between that result, the
"I", and the environment itself. Conflict can only and must inevitably
exist between the false and the false, not between truth and the false.

So do not think this struggle between the self and the environment,
which you call the true struggle, is true. Isn't there a struggle taking
place in each one of you between yourself and your environment, your
surroundings, your husband, your wife, your child, your neighbour, your
society, your political organizations?

You consider that battle necessary in order to help you to realize happiness,
truth, immortality, or ecstasy. To put it differently:
What you consider to be the truth is but self-consciousness, the "I",
which is all the time trying to become immortal, and the environment
which I say is the continual movement of the false. This movement of the
false becomes your ever changing environment, which is called progress,
evolution. So to me, happiness, or truth, or God, cannot be found as the
outcome of the result of environment, the "I", the continually changing
conditions.

I will try to put it again, differently. There is conflict, of which
each one of you is conscious, between yourself and the environment, the
conditions. Now, you say to yourself: "If I can conquer environment,
overcome it, dominate it, I shall find out, I shall understand; so there
is this continual battle going on between yourself and environment.

Now what is the "yourself"? It is but the result, the product of
environment. So what are you doing? You are fighting one false thing
with another false thing, and environment will be false so long as you
do not understand it. Therefore the environment is producing that
consciousness which you call the "I", which is continually trying to
become immortal.

And to make it immortal there must be many ways, there must be means, and
therefore you have religions, systems, philosophies, all the nuisances and
barriers that you have created. Hence there must be conflict between the
result of environment and environment itself; and, as I said, there
can be conflict only between the false and the false; never between truth
and the false. Whereas, in your minds there is this firmly established
idea that in this struggle between the result of environment, which is
the "I", and the environment itself, lies power, wisdom, the path to
eternity, to reality, truth, happiness.

Our vital concern should be with this environment, not with the
conflict, not how to overcome it, not how to run away from it. By
questioning the environment and trying to understand its significance,
we shall find out its true worth.

Most of us are enmeshed, caught up in the process of trying to overcome,
to run away from circumstances. environment; we are not trying to find
out what it means, what is its cause, its significance, its value. When
you see the significance of environment, it means drastic action, a
tremendous upheaval in your life, a complete, revolutionary change of
ideas, in which there is no authority, no imitation. But very few
are willing to see the significance of environment, because it
means change, a radical change, a revolutionary change, and very few
people want that. So most people, vast numbers of people, are concerned
with the evasion of environment; they cover it up, or try to find new
substitutions by getting rid of Jesus Christ and setting up a new saviour;
by seeking new teachers in place of the old, but they do not ever inquire
whether they need a guide at all.

There are escapes through religions, with their edicts, moral standards,
fears, authorities; and escapes through self-expression - what you call
self-expression, what the vast majority of people call self-expression, is
but the reaction against environment, is but the effort to express
oneself through reaction against that environment - self-expression
through art, through science, through various forms of action. Here I am
not including the true, spontaneous expressions of beauty, of art, of
science; they in themselves are complete.

I am talking of the man who is seeking these things as a means of
self-expression. A real artist does not talk about his self-expression,
he is expressing that which he intensely feels; but there are so many
spurious artists, like the spurious spiritual people, who are all the time
seeking self-expression as a means of getting something, some satisfaction
which they cannot find in the environment in which they live.

Through this search for security and permanency, we have established
religions with all their inanities, divisions, exploitations, as means of
escape; and these means of escape become so vital, so important, because,
to tackle environment, that is, the conditions about us, demands
tremendous action, voluntary, dynamic action, and very few are willing to
take that action. On the contrary, you are willing to be forced to an
action by environment, by circumstances; that is, if a man
becomes highly moral and virtuous through depression, you say what a nice
man he is, how he has changed. For that change you depend upon
environment; and so long as there is the dependence on environment for
righteous action, there must be means of escape, substitutions, call it
religion or what you will. Whereas, for the true artist who is also truly
spiritual there is spontaneous expression, which in itself is sufficient,
complete, whole.

You are seeking; and what are you seeking? There is a conflict between
yourself and the constant movement of environment. You are seeking a
means to overcome that environment, so as to perpetuate your own self
which is but the result of that environment; or, because you have been
thwarted so often by environment, which prevents you from
self-expressing, as you call it, you seek a new means of self-expression
through service to humanity, through economic adjustments, and all the
rest of it.

If there is conflict, there is the desire to overcome that conflict, to
escape from that conflict, to dominate it. And as I have said, conflict
can exist only between two false things, between that supposed reality
which you call the "I", which to me is nothing else but the result of
environment, and the environment itself. And hence if your mind is
merely concerned with the overcoming of that struggle, then you are
perpetuating falseness, and hence there is more conflict, more sorrow.
But if you understand the significance of environment, that is, wealth,
poverty, exploitation, oppression, nationalities, religions, and all the
inanities of social life in modern existence, not trying to overcome them
but seeing their significance, then there must be individual action, and
complete revolution of ideas and thought. Then there is no longer a
struggle, but rather light dispelling darkness.

1934-06-17 2nd Public Talk in the Oak Grove, Ojai, California

If you observe, you will see that when there is conflict, you are at once
seeking a solution for it. You want to find a way out of that conflict,
and you generally do find a way out; but you have not solved the conflict,
you have merely shifted it by substituting a new environment, a new
condition, which will in turn produce further conflict. So let us look
into this whole idea of conflict, from where it arises, and what we can do
with it.

Now, conflict is the result of environment, isn't it? To put it
differently, what is environment? When are you conscious of
environment? Only when there is conflict and a resistance to that
environment.

So, if you observe, if you look into your lives, you will see that
conflict is continually twisting, perverting, shaping your lives; and
intelligence, which is the perfect harmony of mind and heart, has no part
in your lives at all. That is, environment is continually shaping,
moulding your lives to action, and naturally out of that continual
twisting, moulding, shaping, perversion, conflict is born. So where there
is this constant process of conflict there cannot be intelligence.
And yet we think that by continually going through conflict we shall
arrive at that intelligence, that fullness, and that plenitude of ecstasy.
But by the accumulation of conflict we cannot find out how to live
intelligently; you can find out how to live intelligently only when you
understand the environment which is creating conflict, and mere
substitution, that is, the introduction of new conditions, is not going to
solve the conflict. And yet if you observe you will see
that when there is conflict, mind is seeking a substitution. We either
say, "It is heredity, economic conditions, past environment", or we
assert our belief in karma, reincarnation, evolution; so we are trying to
give excuses for the present conflict in which the mind is caught, and are
not trying to find out what is the cause of conflict itself, which is to
inquire into the significance of environment.

Conflict then can exist only between environment - environment being
economic and social conditions, political domination, neighbours - between
that environment, and the result of environment which is the "I".
Conflict can exist only so long as there is reaction to that environment
which produces the "I", the self. The majority of people are unconscious
of this conflict - the conflict between one's self, which is but the
result of the environment, and the environment itself; very few are
conscious of this continuous battle. One becomes conscious of that
conflict, that disharmony, that struggle between the false creation of the
environment, which is the "I", and the environment itself, only
through suffering.

Suffering makes one conscious of this conflict, and yet suffering will not
lead man to that fullness, to that richness, that plenitude, that ecstasy
of life, because after all, suffering can only awaken the mind to great
intensity. And when the mind is acute, then it begins to question, the
environment, the conditions, and in that questioning, intelligence is
functioning; and it is only intelligence that will lead man to the
fullness of life and to the discovery of the significance of sorrow.
Intelligence begins to function in the moment of acuteness of suffering,
when mind and heart are no longer escaping, escaping through the various
avenues which you have so cleverly made, which are so apparently
reasonable, factual, real.

Whenever there is the lack of understanding of environment there must
be conflict. Environment gives birth to conflict, and so long as we do
not understand environment, conditions, surroundings, and are merely
seeking substitutions for these conditions, we are evading one conflict
and meeting another. But if in that acuteness of suffering which brings
forth in its fullness a conflict, if in that state we begin to question
environment, then we shall understand the true worth of environment,
and intelligence then functions naturally. Hitherto mind has identified
itself with conflict, with environment, with evasions, and therefore
with suffering; that is, you say, "I suffer." Whereas, in that state of
acuteness of suffering, in that intensity of suffering in which there is
no longer escape, mind itself becomes intelligence.

You have so many environments, which have been imposed on you by
society, by religion, by economic conditions, by social
distinctions, by exploitation and political oppressions. The "I"
has been created by that imposition, by that compulsion; there is
the "I" in you which is fighting the environment and hence there is
conflict. It is no use creating a new environment, because the same
thing will still exist. But if in that conflict there is conscious
sorrow and suffering - and there is always suffering in all
conflict, only man wants to run away from that struggle and he
therefore seeks substitutes - if in that acuteness of suffering you
stop searching for substitutes and really face the facts, you will
see that mind, which is the summation of intelligence, begins to
discover the true worth of environment, and then you will realize
that mind is free of conflict. In the very acuteness of suffering
lies its own dissolution. To put it briefly again, before I answer
the questions that have been given to me: First of all everyone is
caught up in suffering and conflict, but most people are unconscious
of that conflict; they are merely seeking substitutions, solutions
and escapes. Whereas if they cease seeking escapes and begin to
question the environment which causes that conflict, then mind
becomes acute, alive, intelligent. In that intensity mind becomes
intelligence and therefore sees the full worth and significance of
the environment which creates conflict.

But to think over it is not to intellectualize it, that is, to sit down
and make it vanish away through the intellect. To find out if what I am
saying is true, you have to put it into action, and to put it into action
you must question the environment. That is, if you are in conflict,
naturally you must question the environment, but most minds have become
so perverted that they are not aware that they are seeking solutions,
escapes through their marvellous theories.

So if there is conflict, and if you want to find out the cause of that
conflict, naturally the mind must discover it through acuteness of thought
and therefore the questioning of all that which
environment places about you - your family, your neighbours, your
religions, your political authorities; and by questioning there will be
action against the environment. There is the family, the neighbour and
the state, and by questioning their significance you will see that
intelligence is spontaneous, not to be acquired, not to be cultivated.

Question: You say that the "I" is the product of environment. Do you
mean that a perfect environment could be created which would not develop
the "I" consciousness? If so, the perfect freedom of which you speak is a
matter of creating the right environment. Is this correct?

Krishnamurti: Wait a minute. Can there ever be right environment,
perfect environment? There cannot.

What is environment? Environment is created, this whole human
structure has been created, by human fears, longings, hopes,
desires, attainments. Now, you cannot make a perfect environment
because each man is creating, according to his fancies and desires,
new sets of conditions; but having an intelligent mind, you can
pierce through all these false environments and therefore be free of
that "I" consciousness. Please, the "I" consciousness, the sense of
"mine", is the result of environment; isn't it? As that has not
been the case with you, there is the sense of "mine',
possessiveness. That is the result of environment, that "I" is but
the false reaction to environment. Whereas if the mind begins to
question the environment itself, there is no longer a reaction to
environment. Therefore we are not concerned with the possibility of
there ever being a perfect environment.

After all, what is perfect environment? Each man will tell you
what to him is a perfect environment. The artist will say one
thing, the financier another, the cinema actress another; each man asks
for a perfect environment which satisfies him, in other words, which
does not create conflict in him. Therefore there cannot be a perfect
environment. But if there is intelligence, then environment has no
value, no significance, because intelligence is then freed from
circumstance, it is functioning fully.

The question is not whether we can create a perfect environment, but
rather how to awaken that intelligence which shall be free of
environment, imperfect or perfect. I say you can awaken that
intelligence by questioning the full value of any environment in which
your mind is caught up. Then you will see that you are free of any
particular environment, because then you are functioning intelligently,
not being twisted, perverted, shaped by environment.

Question: How then can you say that there is no conflict between
the false and the true? Krishnamurti: I said yesterday that there
can be struggle only between two false things, conflict between the
environment and the result of environment which is the "I". Now
between these two lie innumerable avenues of escape which the "I"
has created, which we call vice, goodness, morality, moral
standards, fears, and all the many opposites; and the struggle can
exist only between the two, between the false creation of the
environment which is the "I", and the environment itself.

First of all, in order to fight, you must know what you are fighting, so
there must be understanding of the fundamental, not of the
divisions between the false things. Now we are so conscious, we are so
fully conscious of the divisions between the false things, between the
result and the environment, that we fight them, and therefore we want to
reform, we want to change, we want to alter, without fundamentally
changing the whole structure of human life. That is, we still want to
preserve the "I" consciousness which is the false reaction to
environment; we want to preserve that and yet want to alter the world.
So what one has to do is to find out if one is dealing with the
fundamental, or merely with the superficial. And to me the superficial
will exist so long as you are merely concerned with the alteration of
environment so as to alleviate conflict. That is, you still want to
cling to the "I" consciousness as "mine", but yet desire to alter the
circumstances so that they will not create conflict in that "I".

I call that superficial thought, and from that there naturally is
superficial action. Whereas if you think fundamentally, that is, question
the very result of the environment which is the "I", and therefore
question the environment itself, then you are acting fundamentally, and
therefore lastingly. And in that there is an ecstasy, in that there is a
joy of which now you do not know because you are afraid to act
fundamentally.

Question: In your talk yesterday you spoke of environment as the
movement of the false. Do you include in environment all the creations
of nature, including human forms? Krishnamurti: Doesn't environment
continually change? Doesn't it? For most people it doesn't change
because change implies continual adjustment, therefore continual awareness
of mind, and most people are concerned with the static condition of the
environment. Yet environment is moving because it is beyond your
control, and it is false so long as you do not understand its
significance.

"Does environment include human forms?" Why set them apart from nature?
We are not concerned so much with nature, because we have almost brought
nature under control, but we have not understood the
environment created by human beings.

So we are not concerned with the stability, with the continuance of an
environment which we understand, because the moment we understand it
there is no conflict. That is, we are seeking security, emotional and
mental, and we are happy so long as that security is assured and therefore
we never question environment, and hence the constant movement of
environment is a false thing which is creating disturbance in each one.
As long as there is conflict, it indicates that we have not understood the
conditions placed about us; and that movement of environment remains
false so long as we do not inquire into its significance, and we can only
discover it in that state of acute consciousness of suffering.

Question: It is perfectly clear to me that the "I" consciousness is the
result of environment, but do you not see that the "I" did not originate
for the first time in this life? From what you say it is obvious that the
"I" consciousness, being the result of environment, must have begun in
the distant past and will continue in the future.

First of all you will admit, if you think about it, that the "I" is the
result of environment. Now to me it doesn't matter whether it is the
past environment or present environment. After all, environment is
of the past also. You have done something which you haven't understood,
you did something yesterday which you haven't understood, and that pursues
you till you understand it. You cannot solve that past environment till
you are fully conscious in the present. So it doesn't matter whether the
mind is crippled by past or present conditions, What matters is that you
shall understand the environment and this will liberate the mind from
conflict.

I will show you why. If the "I" is the result of the
environment, if the "I" is but the essence of conflict, then the mind
must be concerned, not with that continuance of conflict, but with freedom
from that conflict. So it does not matter whether it is the past
environment which is crippling the mind, or the present which is
perverting it, or whether the "I" has had a birth in the distant past.
You know what it means, that you have a burden in the present, the burden
of the past in the present. That is, you bring with you the environment
of the past into the present, and because of that burden, you control the
future, you shape the future. If you come to think of it, it must be so,
that if your mind is perverted by the past, naturally the future must also
be twisted, because if you have not understood the environment of
yesterday it must be continued today; and therefore, as you don't
understand today, naturally you will not understand tomorrow either. That
is, if you have not seen the full significance of an environment or of
an action, this perverts your judgment of today's environment, of
today's action born of environment, which will again pervert you
tomorrow. So one is caught up in this vicious circle, and hence the idea
of continual rebirth, rebirth of memory, or rebirth of the mind continued
by environment.

But I say mind can be free of the past, of past environment, past
hindrances, and therefore you can be free of the future, because then you
are living dynamically in the present, intensely, supremely. In the
present is eternity, and to understand that, mind must be free of the
burden of the past; and to free the mind of the past there must be an
intense questioning of the present, not the considering of how the "I"
will continue in the future.

1934 3rd Public Talk, Ojai, California

So let us decide whether you want a
shelter, a safety zone, which will no longer yield conflict, whether
you want to escape from the present conflict to enter a condition in
which there shall be no conflict; or whether you are unaware,
unconscious of this conflict in which you exist. If you are
unconscious of the conflict, that is, the battle that is taking
place between that self and the environment, if you are unconscious
of that battle, then why do you seek further remedies? Remain
unconscious.

1935 5th Public Talk, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

You follow a system or mould
yourself after a pattern because there is fear, the fear of right
and wrong which has been established according to the tradition of a
system. If thought is merely functioning in the groove of a pattern
without understanding the significance of environment, there must be
conscious or unconscious fear, and such thought must inevitably lead
to confusion, to illusion and false action

1935 Public Talks in Argentina

You have this mould, this environment
of which almost all of us are unconscious, for it is part of us; it
is the very expression of our desires, fears and hopes. While you
conform consciously or thoughtlessly to this system, you are not
individuals.

1948 2nd Public Talk, New Delhi, India

So, to understand this environment
and be free of it in ourselves, not only is it necessary to know all
the hidden, stored up influences in the unconscious, but to know
what we are in conflict with. As we have seen, each one of us is
the result of environment, and we are not separate from environment.

1955 1st Public Talk, Amsterdam, Holland

Surely the contradiction is part of
the environment, it is not separate from it. We are part of the
environment, - which is, religion, education, social morality,
business values, tradition, beliefs, various impositions of
churches, governments, the whole process of the past: those are all
superficial conditionings; and there are also the inward unconscious
responses to those superficial conditionings.

1957 3rd Public Talk, Colombo

So it is very important to understand
not only the conscious, but also the unconscious mind. The
unconscious mind is much more powerful, much more insistent much
more directive and conservative than the conscious mind; because the
conscious is merely the educated mind which adjusts itself to the
environment. He is adjusting himself, as you do, to the
environment, to the pressure from outside, but inwardly he is the
same - that is, the unconscious is still the residue of the past.

1958 3rd Public Talk, Poona, India

The mind is conditioned, is -- Page 17
-- it not? All your environment is shaping the mind; the climate,
the customs, the tradition, the racial influences, the family, -
innumerable conscious and unconscious pressures are shaping the
mind. You are a Hindu, a Parsi, a Mussulman, a Christian or
whatever you are, because you have been influenced by your
environment.

1964 4th Public Talk, Saanen, Switzerland

How is the unconscious to be cleansed
immediately of the past? The analysts think that the unconscious
can be partially or even completely cleansed through analysis -
through investigation, exploration, confession, the interpretation
of dreams, and so on - so that at least you become a `normal' human
being, able to adjust yourself to the present environment.

1965-66 2nd Public Talk, Madras, India

When we observe - without reading
psychologists, the Freuds, the Jungs, and all the rest of the modern
philosophers and psychologists - we know what the unconscious is:
the racial residue, the experience of the race, the social
conditions, the environment, the tradition, the culture - culture
being political, religious, educational - which are all deeply
embedded in the unconscious.

(1966-1971 The Urgency of Change)

All these are the factors which
condition us. Our conscious and unconscious responses to all the
challenges of our environment - intellectual, emotional, outward and
inward - all these are the action of conditioning. Language is
conditioning; all thought is the action, the response of
conditioning.

1971 Public talk, Rome, Italy

So thought is the instrument of pleasure, and
thought is the instrument of pain, fear - consciously or
unconsciously. Then there is the whole question of hidden fears,
unconscious, deep rooted fears inherited through the environment,
through culture, through the race, through family, you know, the
stored up fears. Now how is one to be free of all that?

1972 4th Public Talk, Saanen, Switzerland

If you have, what place has thought in
the whole of consciousness? How deeply the unconscious, the hidden
parts of our minds, the secret recesses, how deeply they are
contaminated by the environment, by the society in which we live, by
or through education and so on. How deeply the whole mind is
polluted and whether it is possible to free the mind altogether from
this pollution of civilization.

(1973-1979 Exploration into Insight)

Or does the unconscious invite
these fears? Does it hold them, do they exist in the traditional
depths of the unconscious; or is it a thing that the unconscious
gathers from the environment? Now, why does the unconscious hold
fears at all?

1980 2nd Public Talk, Sri Lanka

Then the book says in the next
chapter, man has lived with fear from time immemorial - fear, not
only fear of nature, fear of the environment, fear of disease, fear
of accidents and so on, but also the much deeper layers of fear, the
deeper, unconscious, untrodden waves of fear. We are going to read
the book together till the chapter ends and says, "Watch it and you
will be able to end it".